that I expected better of you. Time to quit playing around, Chloe.”
She felt her spine straighten. “I’m not playing around.”
“Of course, you are. There’s no way you could be interested in him.”
“But I am.” She smiled at Josh.
Josh stared at her as if she was speaking in tongues.
Chloe smiled a little more. “I guess you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”
“I understand you perfectly,” he retorted, teeth gritted into a smile. “We understand each other perfectly. And while I can understand that you might want to play hard to get, maybe to influence the terms of the pre-nup, this has to stop now.”
Chloe gasped. The suggestion that she was avoiding him as a negotiating tactic was horrible.
Josh didn’t notice her response. “You’re almost twenty-nine and we want to have all our kids before you’re thirty-five.”
We?
“Maybe I don’t want to have kids.”
He laughed, flashing the perfect teeth that had cost him a fortune. His laugh boomed over the dance floor and other couples turned to look. Chloe’s own smile was gone. She was simmering with fury and was halfway afraid to even part her lips lest the truth come out. “Of course, we’ll have kids. I’m thinking three. One of each, then whichever way it goes.” Oblivious to her reaction, he continued. “We can get the license Monday—I know someone in the city clerk’s office who can make it happen in a hurry—and be married before the new year. You know how sweet that is for tax returns. Then you can go west to quit your job there, pack up your stuff, and I’ll make space in the closet for you. Maybe I’ll go with you for a short honeymoon. We can be settled by the middle of January, and with luck pop out the first baby before next Christmas.”
“I’m not going to pop out a baby by next Christmas,” Chloe said, keeping her temper with an effort. “I’m not going to quit my job, either, and I’m certainly not going to move into your place, whether you make room in the closet or not.”
He kept talking, ignoring her objections the way he always did. “It’s a great place. Good location. I know you’ll love it. I do.”
“And that’s really it, isn’t it? You’re sure that everything you like is what I’ll like.” The music ended and they spun to a halt but Josh didn’t release her. Chloe realized that her voice was carrying and she didn’t care. “And obviously, everything you want must be what I want.”
“We’re two of a kind, Chloe,” Josh said, looking a bit wary for the first time.
“No,” she said flatly. She put her hand on his chest and pushed him away. He was so surprised that he took a step back and released her. “You’ve decided that we’re two of a kind, because it suits your plans, but we’re not. I don’t want what you want. I’m not sure I’ll ever have kids. I love my job. And that’s why I broke off with you last year, Josh. It wasn’t a whim or a game or a negotiating tactic. I don’t want to marry you and I never will.”
He was visibly astounded. “You’d choose him over me?”
“In a heartbeat,” she said, because it was true.
“But why?”
There were so many reasons, but Chloe went with the first one that came to mind. “Because he asks what I think, and he listens to my answers.”
“But I know what’s best for you...”
“No. You think you know what’s best for you, which is an entirely different thing. I’m not a prop, Josh. I’m not an accessory. I’m a person with ideas and plans of my own, and if you ever once listened to a thing I say, you’d know that already.”
With that, Chloe stepped away from Josh, spun and walked across the floor. She was trembling and her heart was racing, even though she knew she’d done the right thing. She heard the whispers from other attendees before the music started again and saw her mom’s frown. Todd was whispering to Mandy who was watching Chloe even as she nodded.
Chloe felt a bit unsteady on her feet, hating that she’d had to dress him down so publically, then looked up and realized she was walking right toward Hunter.
And he was smiling at her, admiration in his eyes. “I’d applaud, but it might be tacky in this crowd,” he confided when she reached his side. Instead he bent over her hand and kissed it. Several of